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Introduction
The sudden spike in latency for Datadog's APM service in the US West region yesterday afternoon is a critical issue that demands immediate attention and thorough analysis. As we dive into this product root cause analysis, we'll systematically investigate potential factors contributing to this performance degradation, aiming to identify the underlying cause and develop both short-term fixes and long-term preventive measures.
Framework overview
This analysis follows a structured approach covering issue identification, hypothesis generation, validation, and solution development.
Step 1
Clarifying Questions (3 minutes)
Why it matters: Infrastructure changes often correlate with performance issues. Expected answer: Recent server upgrades or network reconfigurations. Impact on approach: If confirmed, we'd focus on infrastructure-related hypotheses.
Why it matters: New code can introduce unexpected latency. Expected answer: Details of recent deployments, if any. Impact on approach: If there were deployments, we'd prioritize code-related hypotheses.
Why it matters: Unexpected load can strain systems and cause latency. Expected answer: Traffic patterns and any anomalies. Impact on approach: Abnormal traffic would lead us to investigate capacity and scaling issues.
Why it matters: External dependencies can significantly impact our service performance. Expected answer: Status of integrated services and APIs. Impact on approach: Issues with dependencies would shift our focus to integration points and fallback mechanisms.
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